"You have to make your own fire for the exam, Kestovar," Severa said after witnessing his reasonably competent display of Embertrace.

"Ranan said the same thing," Kestovar murmured.

"Then you should have known that much."

He stayed silent for a while. Rolen had said he needed to get the basics right first, but the fact stood that next month he'd need to light actual flames to pass practical tests. "Then what do you suggest I do?" he asked.

She thought for a moment, then said, "There might be some fireforms suitable for you. Unfortunately, I'd rather not demonstrate these in front of an audience."

"Then when?"

"We are going to figure out a schedule," she glanced at her wristglyph. "My job here is done."

"But you didn't do anything."

"I only came to see if you'd shown up," Severa said, matter-of-factly. "If you had, it would've been discourteous of me not to come. If you hadn't, I'd have had a perfectly valid reason to remind you later."

Can't argue with that logic . . .

"Time is a valuable commodity, I don't have much of it to spare at the moment," she went on. "If we're to make any progress, we'll have to reschedule. Can I also expect you at the Air Thaumaturgy practical this afternoon?"

"Actually—"

"You are going to make an excuse again."

I can't! I'm having private lessons with Kaldrin. "No, but I really cannot."

"I will come anyway, and will have time to spare, so you'd best prepare something resembling participation." With that, she swung her cloak and walked off. It hadn't even been a full five minutes since she'd shown up.

[Training Completed: +3 EXP]

[Progress to Level 7: 3697/4550]

Leaf poetry was not that fun.

It wasn't even poetry, not in the sense that it had to rhyme or have a point. From what Fabrisse could tell, it was just Liene crouching under the ventrafig tree again, scribbling incomprehensible phrases onto leaves like she was preparing an eccentric ransom note.

He followed a few steps behind her, watching as she plucked a fresh batch from the ground, brushing each clean with her sleeve before setting them in a neat pile. Today's ink was a pale blue that looked exactly like diluted laundry soap.

She dipped her brush, wrote something quick and looping, and set the leaf aside.

He leaned forward. It read:

the clouds eat the shape of our certainty

He stared at it. He turned the leaf sideways to see if it made more sense that way. It did not.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"It means," she said, not looking up, "whatever you feel when you read it. Isn't that wonderful?"

By the time she'd finished five more leaves ("dust remembers / the weight of our footsteps" being the most nonsensical), Fabrisse was starting to suspect that leaf poetry wasn't about the poetry at all. It was about creating a situation in which he was forced to stand around, baffled, while she quietly enjoyed herself.

And she was enjoying herself. He could tell by the tiny way her mouth twitched every time he frowned at a new one.

"Can I write one?" he asked finally.

"Of course." She handed him a blank leaf and the brush.

Stolen story; please report.

He hesitated only a second before writing:

this is a leaf the end

She took it from him, examined it with mock reverence, and placed it gently in her 'finished' pile. "Perfect," she said. "Brutal minimalism. Very avant-garde."

He sighed. She was right. Besides getting into hijinks, their interests were not that similar. No matter how accommodating Liene was about his rock obsessions, she wasn't really into them. Fabrisse doubted she could name more than five common quartz without guessing.

She had moved on to a new leaf, and her voice had fallen into that gentle hum she got when working, almost like she was performing a private ritual.

He let his eyes wander to the gravel at his feet. He should be in the library right now, reviewing synaptic clarity drills. Or in the courtyard, running through elemental cycling. His boot scraped against the dirt. Packed soil and shallow roots stood beneath—good enough. He let out a slow breath, clearing the noise of Liene's brushstrokes from his head.

[Spell Cast: Steadroot (Rank I — Basic Earth Anchor)]

The stillness entered him first. Thin lines of pressure ran downward, knitting with the stubborn lattice of dirt and stone until the ground beneath him. He wouldn't be visibly able to see how still he'd made the ground unless something else was trying to move it, but he could feel his aether leaving his fingertip as he cast the spell.

[Mastery Training: Steadroot (Rank I)—Progress to Rank II: 3%]

The familiar text slid into his peripheral vision.

Quest Available: "Practice Makes Perfect"

Objective: Repeat mastery training of a Rank I spell until it reaches Rank II.

Reward: +1 FOR, +3 Mastery Points (affinity register upon spell reaching Rank II), +75 EXP

[SYSTEM NOTE: The ground can't complain, so you can do this as much as you like.]

He stared at the last line for a second too long. The system's sense of humor was starting to worry him.

Still, it only made him more focused. If it wanted him to grind the same spell until it leveled up, fine. He'd already resigned himself to spending an absurd amount of his life standing on dirt for incremental benefits.

Or maybe . . . not now. Not Earth Thaumaturgy.

Menus folded out in crisp golden lines. His mind jumped immediately to fire and air skills—those were the units he was studying right now. If he could rank one of them up before the term's final assessments, the points might tip his grades just enough.

I need to distribute my attribute points first, though.

This was a no-brainer: 3 points in RES.

And maybe . . . he should finally get serious about Basic Combustion Funnel. In a flame thaumaturgy assessment, it was just showy enough to leave a good impression without setting anything (important) on fire.

Someone's silhouette had already framed in the curl of the Eidralith's glyph he'd idly left hovering. Someone that looked very much like Liene.

Fabrisse cut the connection, and the gold lines dissolved into the air. It was Liene.

Liene stood there, hands planted on her hips, eyebrows arched in exaggerated disapproval. "Really in your prodigy era now right, Fabri?" she squinted at him, "Careful, or next thing I know you'll be racing for the leaderboard with the rest of the overachievers."

She kept her smile light. He'd seen that smile before, more times than he could count. It was the one she wore right before speaking, only for the words to turn out small and unimportant. The pattern had become so familiar now that he could almost predict the pause before it.

A voice cut through the courtyard, "Mr. Kestovar!"

He turned around to see Professor Kaldrin striding toward him with purposeful steps. "You scheduled another practice session with me at five and a half. Don't be late this time. And good afternoon, Miss Lugano."

"Good afternoon, Professor. Didn't you just have a session with him?"

"Yes. That's why I said he scheduled 'another' one," Kaldrin replied.

Liene stepped back and turned to Fabrisse. "You should get back to your studies," she said, the grin she wore not quite reaching her eyes. "Seems like your head's already elsewhere."

Before he could reply, she pulled one of the freshly inked leaves from her finished pile and held it out. The pale blue words were simple:

you can't pour from an empty cup

"Here," she said, pressing it into his palm. "This one's easy to get." It wasn't.

Fabrisse glanced from the leaf to her face. "You could come along," he said, not wanting her to think he was brushing her off. "Kaldrin's fine with spectators."

She hesitated. He knew she had restorative theory tests coming up.

"Well," she said after a beat, tucking her brush behind her ear, "I can always find some more free time."

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